I Saw This Person Today
And the Big Ugly Bill is still alive
I saw this woman today, and something made me want to draw her.
I sense that so many people are now in vacation mode, either in reality or in their mind. It’s hard to focus on politics, I know it is for me. But important stuff is happening, and if passed, this bill could change a generation of positive efforts in our country for those less fortunate. It also could be the end of the downfall of Trump in the midterms. Always look for the positive.
That said, the Big Ugly bill narrowly passed the Senate today, Vance had to come in and break the tie. Susan Collins of Maine came through and voted no, along with Rand Paul and Thom Tillus. Now it goes back to the House.
Any attempts by Democrats to reduce the damage to low income families was only rebuffed, opting only to shield certain states from the steepest cuts in order to win over holdouts, including Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska. Such selfishness.
“We are looking at the most expensive piece of legislation probably since the 1960s,” said Jessica Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. “The danger is that Congress is piling trillions of new borrowing on top of deficits that are already leaping.”
Millions of low-income Americans will suffer huge losses if this bill passes, and it will strip health insurance, food stamps and other aid for the poor, all so the wealthy can get lower taxes. The bill calls for deep cuts in Medicaid, and for $45 billion for new immigrant detention centers and nearly $30 billion to supercharge ICE.
Lydia Polgreen of the NY Times wrote that more than half of Americans said ICE has “gone too far” in one recent poll. In another, 61 percent opposed the $45 billion for detention centers.
“Trumpist populism offers its adherents nothing but the demonization and expulsion of immigrants. In return, generations of Americans will be left sicker and deeper in debt.”
Yet Republicans are saying this will be a boom for the economy and a benefit for all income levels, just lying. It’s unclear if the House will now approve this legislation. If they do, it goes back to the Senate for final approval and then to Trump’s desk. The way I see it, the more back and forth squabbling, the better it is for the Democrats in the midterm elections. Polls show that Americans don’t like these potential changes.
Anyway.
Here is the video grab of the drawing I did above.
Thanks for being here! See you tomorrow.
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A person named Patris in a comment wrote, "The BBB (that Bastard Blob’s Bill)." I told her I would credit her if I used it, but I hadn't planned to unless the Bastard Blob's Big Ugly Bill actually passed. Now, cruelly, it seems that it will pass, and the Big Bastard Blob can make an incoherent victory speech. I am beyond disgusted, sick, and revolted by many rethuglicon senators like Murkowski. They can argue that their first duty is to their constituents, and I suppose that's true, but what about their duty to the country, to humanity, to the powerless and poor who will be catastrophically affected by the passage of this atrocity? The "party of small government" is now the party of cruelty.
I love your drawing of the anonymous woman on the subway. Just an ordinary woman, a Noo Yawka, traveling somewhere on the train, relaxed, looking at her phone as people do. I hope she was having a lovely day and not obsessed with politics, like me.
That just one more R couldn’t find the courage to vote no on one of the worst bills in decades is so depressing.
On a brighter note, I was in NYC last weekend and thought of who you might draw while I was riding the subway.